1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a system and method for resolving identities that are indefinitely resolvable.
More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method for providing a load order independent resolution outcome by unresolving an entity, and possibly related entities, when resolution ambiguity arises.
2. Description of the Related Art
Data management is a key component to a business's success. A data management system may handle billions of customer accounts at a particular time, all the while attempting to maintain a high accuracy level. During the account management process, a data management system may “resolve” associated accounts into an “entity.” For example, John Smith may have a checking account, a savings account, and a credit card account. In this example, the business may resolve each of these accounts into a single entity for John Smith.
An account may include account data, such as a name, address, phone number, social security number, etc. In addition, the account data may represent, for example, a person, place, event, time, object, biometric, or protein. Traditional resolution technologies may successfully resolve accounts into entities. For example, if two accounts both include a person's social security number, an obvious resolution exists and the two accounts are resolved into one entity. Some accounts, however, may only include a subset of account data. For example, if one account includes the name Patrick Smith, and the other account includes the name Pat Smith, it is not obvious as to whether these accounts should resolve into one entity. In many cases, when existing art encounters this ambiguous condition, existing art resolves the accounts into an entity when the account and entity includes a fairly large percentage of the same amount of data. A challenge found with these approaches, however, is that the resolution outcomes may be dependent upon the order in which accounts are resolved into an entity.
Another challenge found is that an account may equally resolve, or ambiguously resolve, to more than one entity. When this occurs, existing art typically resolves the account into one of the entities based on the highest score, first located, most recent data, etc., which may or may not be correct. For example, if a first entity included Patrick Smith, and a second entity included Patricia Smith, existing art may resolve an account for Pat Smith into the Patrick Smith entity. This may not be accurate because Pat Smith may actually refer to Patricia Smith, or may be the son or daughter of Patrick and Patricia Smith.
Furthermore, when an account resolves into an entity, existing art does not check ambiguity between other entities. For example, if an entity included accounts for Patrick Smith and Pat Smith, existing art would not resolve an account for Patricia Smith into that entity, but rather creates a new entity. In this example, existing art does not address the issue of whether Pat Smith should still resolve to Patrick Smith, Patricia Smith, or neither.
What is needed, therefore, is a system and method providing a load order independent resolution outcome by unresolving an entity, and possibly related entities, when resolution ambiguity arises.